Metro ridership record for July Fourth

More riders used the Metro Saturday than on any previous July Fourth. The agency announced this morning that ridership was 631,206, surpassing the record set last year for the holiday by 32,308.

While customers complained about long waits to get on trains, this was expected and many felt the system handled the surge in traffic remarkably well. Besides a smoke incident on the Green Line late Saturday that forced the use of a single track for 40 minutes, the system moved relatively smoothly.